Perform an Mental Cleanse

We’ve talked about purging and cleaning in our last post, now is the time for a mental cleanse. Everyone has their days of negativity and slump. You hear it from others or experience it for yourself. Your body and mind soak up all that negativity like a sponge in water until you’re ready to burst and you may just burst on someone you love.

We’ve all done it. Gotten so frustrated, overwhelmed, overworked that all that built up negativity is just looking for an outlet and someone close to you does one small thing you didn’t like. The next thing you know, your at each others throat over something so tiny it should have just been brushed off or asked nicely about and the thing would have been taken care of.

This is where a mental clean comes into play. Instead of getting to the point where you are taking all your frustration and overwhelm on someone else. Work through it yourself with a mental cleanse.

How to Perform a Mental Cleanse

A mental cleanse it part of a bigger whole. During this time you should also be scheduling in time to cleanse other areas of your life. Such as a spring clean of your home/office or digital presence, and your process of self-care.

Your goal here should be to create a balance and flow for your mental capacity to flourish, instead of fill to the point of bursting. To keep positivity at the forefront of your mind while dealing with the negative and not letting it pile up.

Everyone struggles with negativity and how to deal with it. If you have read some of my previous posts, you know I struggle with this as well. That doesn’t mean we can’t work though the negativity and clean out the mind to focus on success.

There is no greater feeling than that of moving past your fears, struggles and setbacks to forge forward toward your goals, a sense of calm and comfort in the now.

Prep Steps

In order to get into the right state to perform your mind cleanse, you need to do a few steps first. These are here to get you thinking about the time you will need for your cleanse, what to do before getting started, and where you should perform your cleanse.

Prep Step 1: Time

Your time is important to you and you most certainly know how to use it to your benefit. Here, though, is where you need to think. Think about how long your mental purge will take. Every one is different and I can’t tell you what works for me will work for you. You know how much clutter and distraction is in your mind.

Now you need to decide how long it may take to clean that all out. Will it take you an afternoon? A Day? or an entire week? Depending on how much you’ve been holding onto, you may need a longer time period or multiple sessions. It’s up to you to schedule them in and actually go through the steps.

Prep Step 2: Self-Care

In preparation for your mental cleanse, you should also take care of yourself. Your mind shares with your body, your emotions are shown through your body language so it only makes sense that you should perform self-care in conjunction with your mind cleanse.

• Dental and physical hygiene (We are still under covid-19 restrictions, people are still at home, and some have gotten a bit lazy so this is worth mentioning)
• Exercise
• Drink Water
• Eat Healthy

Though self-care usually includes mental topics and more, we will go through those below.

Prep Step 3: Physical Clutter

As with anything else in life, clutter and disorganization can cause anxiety and distain for your surroundings. Ever get home from a longer trip to walk in on a messy house? The dishes aren’t done, the table is full of papers, toys, and whatever else.

The draining feeling as you see that you have work to do once you get home is discouraging and sometimes depressing. Your mind needs that clean area to feel accomplished so it can focus on other things.

Now that we’ve got some pre-steps out of the way, we can get to the steps it takes to get your mind cleaned out and you on the right track. So, let’s get to it.

Prep Step 4: Choose Your Environment Wisely

The Environment you choose for your mind cleanse is just as important as the mind cleanse itself. You want to choose a quiet, calming area where you won’t be interrupted by anyone or anything.

Where you choose to complete your mind cleanse is totally up to you, just keep in mind that you will get more out of it if it’s a place you feel comfortable, calm, and with no distractions.

Areas of Focus

For each cleanse you perform, and you should come back and complete a mental cleanse periodically to stay sane and on track, there are areas in which you should keep your focus during the process. They are listed below:

Focus on Control

Your focus is split between a million different things at once: home, work, friends, spouses, children, projects and more. Sometimes what you focus on is out of your control whether it’s home or work, friends or children. There will always be those things that are out of your control, so the only thing you can do is focus on what you can control.

Create a schedule you and your spouse can agree on to get things done, think outside the box when dealing with your children or friends, take a different perspective when working on projects. You may not be able to control every aspect of your life, but you can find areas where you do have control.

Be Present

With our focus spread so thin, we tend to spread it even thinner by thinking of the past as well as the future. While thinking about the future and learning from your past are not bad things. However, concentrating on them as you walk through life can harm more than benefit.

Keep your focus in the present while thinking about your endpoint when needed to get you to where you want to go. Your focus can only spread so far, so keep it where it needs to be… where you are right now.

Disconnect

We’ve all heard about disconnecting and with Covid-19, it’s the last thing on our minds. Though, connecting with people is completely different than connecting with apps, social media site and the news, it’s worth removing yourself from all of it for a while to get your mind in a better place.

Do you really need to see every news bulletin or report? Most of what’s on the news these days is negative and it’s just filling you with negativity as you sit and watch report after report, story after story. Those same stories fly around social media like wildfire fanning the flame of negativity. Do you really need all that? My answer would be a resounding No!

Try taking a break from all the device watching and see how you feel. The less negativity going in, the less negativity going out because of the residual feelings.

Emotional Purge

An emotional purge isn’t about getting rid of feelings or emotions you consider to be negative, but to find and identify any emotion that might be displaced.

Why are you having feelings of doubt? Fear? Anxiety? Overwhelm? What is the root, where the emotion is coming from? What are ways you can take control and purge these from your mind?

Focus on the positive, take action for those things you can control, take a chance, and move forward with confidence, strength, and courage.

Writing in a Journal/Brain(Mind Dump)

A great way to get all that negative and even positive (you don’t want to review all the negative when you look back, right?) out is to brain dump or write in a journal daily. Write it all out, your papers won’t spread your negativity, it’s trapped there, as long as you keep it there.

That’s the difference between your mind and paper, your mind will continue to bring those negative feelings and thoughts back to the forefront when you least expect them. When your write them out, they are now the property of your journal not your mind. Let it keep those feelings of doubt, failure, and overwhelm within it’s pages. Just don’t forget to put your positive feeling in there too, put them on opposite pages so when you close the book, the combat each other.

You can look back to see what you’ve overcome from the time you wrote those notes, it’s a fantastic feeling.

Protect

There are times when the negativity coming at you is not of your own doing and I could be that you are trying to help another. Those times when your friend or sibling needs to rant about a situation, the new report that got you riled up, your kids arguing over something trivial.

You are bombarded by negative vibes every day. It’s up to you to keep yourself protected by cleansing your mind every once in a while.

Final Thoughts

Your mind is a mass of intelligence, a storage of memories and information, and the keeper of your sanity. Treat it right, give it a break, a mental cleanse. Use the practices here to keep your mind on the right path and free from distraction, doubt, fear and other feelings or emotions that are hurting rather than empowering you.